Indicator lights Do Not Turn On when speaking to Google Nest Mini

[austinlevine]

Nest Mini no longer shows LED lights during voice interaction, though lights appear at startup and audio response works. I really need help with this as it was working previously and then it suddenly stopped showing the lights when I talk to it.

[Aiden1]

Yeah, same here.  In my case I think it may be because Gemini is answering my question instead of Google Assistant.  Do you have the experimental feature for this turned on?

[austinlevine]

Yes, but this issue didn’t start when I turned it on, 

[Aiden1]

Mine started the same day as your post.  The previous day we had a bad storm in my area and lost electricity.  I noticed it when everything rebooted when power was restored.  It's the result of a software update obviously but probably linked to Gemini activity under the hood somewhere.

[Toph]

Same issue and I have the Gemini feature turned on. Also noticed this started happening about when the lights on my Nest Audio started lighting up pink and purple when it responds.

[austinlevine · Accepted solution]

Update about 16 hours later than when I posted, it is now back to normal, I assume they pushed some firmware update, but it works great now.

[Aiden1]

Interesting.  Issue persists on mine and I've checked and I'm on the latest firmware.  Not sure what to think. 

[Neronetfi]

I've noticed this with my Google home speakers as well.  It throws me off because I always look to make sure that they light up and are listening before I continue. 

[Aiden1]

Yeah it's really been throwing me off too.  I probably triggered the hot word a few times before I realized it had been listening from the start.  

The status lights do flash briefly when it is listening after providing a response(I have continued conversation turned on) but other than that, I haven't been seeing them light up.

[Toph]

I'm still having this issue as of today on both of my nest minis. This seems like a really high priority bug since I assumed that a speaker could not be listening without the indicator lights turned on. A huge privacy concern in my opinion

[Toph]

Update: I performed a factory reset on one of my Nest minis (by enabling the mute switch and pressing and holding center of speaker) and that has fixed the problem with the indicator lights not turning on

[sicsacol]

Hi all,

Thanks for posting in the community page. I'm sorry to hear your Nest speaker light indicator doesn't work as intended when you use your voice command with Google Assistant. I really appreciate the information shared, as it's really helpful. Don't worry, help is here. To better assist you, please confirm:

• Do lights appear when adjusting volume manually?
• Did the lights work correctly before adding Gemini?
• Does your Nest speaker still perform actions or answer questions when prompted?
• Do the lights turn on when your Nest speaker starts up?
• Is the mic switch on your Nest speaker turned on?
• Does the orange LED show when you turn off the mic?
• What's your Google Home app version?
• What's your Nest speaker firmware version?

I also encourage you to submit feedback directly from your device, if you haven’t already. Just say, “Hey Google, send feedback,” and provide as much detail as possible when prompted.

Any additional details you can provide will be helpful.

Regards,
Jonathan